Abstract [en]

The background describes cultural aspects and how nurses relate to patients' ethnicity. Patients' view on health care varies depending on cultural background, which affects the encounter with health care. Nurse's responsibility is to provide care for and treat patients with respect and dignity regardless of ethnicity. During the encounter with patients difficulties may arise in meeting these needs when the understanding of what caused the disease may differ from the nurse. Difficulties in communication and in understanding each culture can lead to misunderstandings. There is a fine line to cultural sensitivity as the patient can easily be treated differently or discriminated against because of their ethnicity. The aim of the thesis is to describe nurse’s experience in encounters between patients with another ethnic background than the majority ethnic population. The method used was a systematic literature review where scientific articles were analyzed. The result is presented in four themes: Understanding the gender perspective in caring, understanding of different modes of expression, knowledge of insight to disease and Educational needs. The result shows that nurses desire more knowledge about culture in their training, and a broader understanding of differences in gender dynamics as cultural encounters were perceived as difficult resulting in a non-caring encounter especially when communication deficiencies were found. Nurses need and want more training about different cultures.